Letters between Wallace Hall committee members leak

A co-chair of the House committee investigating University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall does not favor his impeachment, according to a letter first obtained by The Texas Tribune, the contents of which were confirmed by two committee members.

In the letter, Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Canton, told committee members that while Hall’s actions were inappropriate, he does not believe they require his removal from office. Flynn is one of three committee members who have written letters stating where they stand on the issue of potentially impeaching Hall, according to Rep. Carol Alvarado, the committee’s other co-chair, and committee member Rep. Lyle Larson.

“This committee cannot deny the fact that Regent Hall provide himself to be an arrogant, self-centered, unobliging individual determined to entertain this investigation on his terms alone,” Flynn wrote, later describing his behavior as that of “a small grade school bully throwing out barbs against others and then running to hide behind his mother’s skirt, all while continuing to throw rocks.”

However, he adds: “However, as much as individuals may want to see Mr. Hall impeached, his overbearing, obnoxious attitude and blatant disregard for procedure alone is simply not a reason to impeach, nor does there appear to be the legal ground to do so.”

Flynn later goes on to credit Hall for exposing the “payola scheme that provided more than 6 million dollars in forgivable loans from the University of Texas’ Law School Foundation” and for prompting an investigation into allegations of that lawmakers were awarded favors by the University. Additionally, Flynn called for an investigation into UT-Austin’s decision to award a million-dollar contract to Accenture.

Flynn’s letter largely mirrored a letter written by another committee member, Rep. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, which also argued that Hall’s activities did not amount to impeachable offenses, Larson, R-San Antonio, and Alvarado, D-Houston, said.

Flynn’s letter was rebutted by a letter from Rep. Eric Johnson, D-Dallas, who missed the committee’s April meeting because his wife was giving birth.

“[Y]ou also asked why it took the Committee ‘spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars’ to do something that would not be tolerated in the business world,” he wrote. “I found this question to be a strange one coming from the person who, along with the Committee’s co-chair, actually made the decision to hire the Committee’s counsel and presumably approved the contract for the Committee counsel’s services.”

He added: “As for the behavior that ‘would, in the business world, not be tolerated,’ it is unclear to me exactly whose behavior you are decrying, but raising the issue, even obliquely, of the cost of the Committee discharging its duties strikes me as peculiar coming from the person who actually authorized those expenditures.”

Johnson later writes in his letter that the committee should delay voting on Hall’s impeachment until the committee issues its final report and for Travis County prosecutors to wrap up their investigation of Hall’s activities, concluding in either a closed investigation, grand jury no bill, or an indictment.